St Bernardus Abt 12 prone to variation?

Yo dudes. I live in Korea and having just come back from Tokyo with a handful of Abt 12's, I was very disappointed that none of them tasted like they should have. They lacked that classic marzipan/almond character and they were almost completrly dry, and I'm used to them being quite sweet. I think they were dated something like 2015.

That would put it at a 2010 bottling date? I had some a couple weeks ago that was bottled in 2009 (purchased from a liquor store in early January, 2013), and there were no issues. Still tasted great, although in my opinion, not as good as fresher bottles, although again, the liquor store probably wasn't the ideal storing facility. Anyway, the several times I've had it, there wasn't really any variation. Definitely not dry like you're saying. Would that be the cardboardy oxidation flavor?

Me too, it's probably my number one beer. I only got aquainted with it last summer so I was gutted when I got my bottles back all in one piece only to find they'd paled considerably. I'm at a loss to describe it. I know the bottle shop (Tanakaya) is well renowned. I don't understand why the beer was so dry. Could my bottles have been shaken about too much in transit?